Introduction
The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) is one of the national
environmental data centers operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The main NODC
facility is located in Silver Spring, Maryland and is made up of five
divisions (see the NODC organizational chart).
The NODC also has field offices collocated with major government or
academic oceanographic laboratories in Stennis Space Center, MS; Miami,
FL; La Jolla, CA; Seattle, WA, and Honolulu, HI.
Besides the NODC, NOAA operates two
other data centers:
National Climatic Data Center
(NCDC), Asheville, North Carolina National
Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), Boulder, Colorado
Also, the National
Snow and Ice Data Center* (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado is operated
for NGDC by the University of Colorado through the Cooperative Institute
for Research on Environmental Sciences (CIRES).
These discipline-oriented centers serve as national repositories and
dissemination facilities for global environmental data. The data archives
amassed by the NODC and the other centers provide a record of Earth's
changing environment and support numerous research and operational applications.
Working cooperatively, the centers provide data products and services
to scientists, engineers, resource managers, policy makers, and other
users in the United States and around the world.
NODC
History and Mission
Established in 1961, the NODC was originally an interagency facility
administered by the U.S. Naval Hydrographic (later Oceanographic)
Office. The NODC was transferred to NOAA in 1970 when NOAA was created
by Executive Order. In the words of its charter, the NODC serves to
"acquire, process, preserve, and disseminate oceanographic data."
Its primary mission is to ensure that global oceanographic data sets collected
at great cost are maintained in a permanent archive that is easily
accessible to the world science community and to other users.
Core Mission Description
The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) is an enterprise organization that provides scientific and public stewardship for national and international marine environmental and ecosystem data and information. The National Oceanographic Data Center, National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC) and NOAA Central Library, with its regional branch assets, are integrated to provide access to the world's most comprehensive sources of marine environmental data and information. NODC maintains and updates a national ocean archive with environmental data acquired from domestic and foreign activities and produces products and research from these data which help monitor global environmental changes. These data include physical, biological and chemical measurements derived from in situ oceanographic observations, satellite remote sensing of the oceans, and ocean model simulations. NODC manages and operates the World Data Center (WDC) for Oceanography, Silver Spring. Its personnel directly interact with Federal, state, academic, and industrial oceanographic activities, represent NESDIS on various interagency domestic panels, committees and councils, and represent the United States in various international organizations, such as the International Oceanographic Data Exchange. The Data Center represents NESDIS and NOAA to the general public, government agencies, private institutions, foreign governments, and the private sector on matters involving oceanographic data.
NODC
Data Holdings
The NODC manages the world's largest collection of publicly available
oceanographic data. NODC holdings include in situ and remotely
sensed physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data from
coastal and deep ocean areas. These were originally collected for
a variety of operational and research missions by U.S. Federal agencies,
including the Department of Defense (primarily the U.S. Navy); by
State and local government agencies; by universities and research
institutions; and private industry. NODC data holdings extend back over one hundred
years, and the volume is expected to grow exponentially as new ocean
observing systems are deployed.
Through NODC archive and access services these ocean data are being reused to answer questions about climate
change, ocean phenomena, and management of coastal and marine resources,
marine transportation, recreation, national security, and natural disasters. Another significant
user community is Education, where these data and information products
help teach each new generation of students about the oceans. Requests
for oceanographic data and information have increased each year since
the Center was established in 1961.
International
Cooperation and Data Exchange
A significant percentage of the oceanographic data held by NODC is
foreign. NODC acquires foreign data through direct bilateral exchanges
with other countries, and through the facilities of the World
Data Center for Oceanography, Silver Spring, which is collocated
with and operated by NODC.
There are three World Data Centers for Oceanography:
World Data Center, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States,
World Data Center, Moscow, Russia, and
World Data Center, Tianjin, People's Republic of China.
They are part of the World
Data Center System initiated in 1957 to provide a mechanism for
data exchange, and they operate under guidelines issued by the International
Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU).
Under NODC leadership, the Global
Data Archeology and Rescue (GODAR) project has grown into a major
international program sponsored by the Inter-governmental Oceanographic
Commission. GODAR is a comprehensive effort to locate, rescue, quality
control, and disseminate historical global ocean profile data for
use by the climate and global change research community. For more information, check out NODC's International Activities page.
Data
Management for Global Change Studies
The NODC provides data management support for major ocean science
projects such as TOGA (Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere), WOCE (World
Ocean Circulation Experiment), and JGOFS (Joint Global Ocean Flux
Study). To promote improved working relations with the academic ocean
research community, the NODC established three joint centers with
university research groups.
1. Joint Environmental Data Analysis Center (with
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San
Diego)
2. Joint Archive for Sea Level (with the University
of Hawaii)
3. Joint Center for Research in the Management of Ocean Data
(with the University of Delaware)
NOAA
Library and Information Network
The NODC also manages the NOAA Library
and Information Network, which includes the NOAA Central Library in
Silver Spring, MD; regional libraries in Miami, FL and Seattle, WA;
and field libraries or information centers at about 30 NOAA sites
throughout the United States. The combined libraries contain millions of volumes including books, journals,
CD-ROMs, DVDs, audio, and video tapes.
User
Services
Each year the NODC responds to thousands of requests for oceanographic
data and information. Copies of specified data sets or data selected
from the NODC's archive databases can be provided to users on various
media types, or online. NODC data products are provided at prices
that cover the cost of data selection and retrieval. Most data provided
on the NODC Web site is free of charge.
Requests for further information about the NODC and its data holdings,
products and services should be directed to:
National Oceanographic Data Center
User Services
NOAA/NESDIS E/OC1
SSMC3, 4th Floor
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-3282
Telephone: 301-713-3277
Fax: 301-713-3302
E-mail: NODC.Services@noaa.gov